Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 186 The tree fell and the hozens scattered
After the Frankish cavalry retreated, they did not dare to launch another attack for a short period of time. Orville took advantage of this time to take action. He ordered the Celts hiding in the woods to rush out of the woods and launch an offensive against the Germanic coalition from the flank.

The spearhead of the attack was the Irish Celts represented by Cuchulainn. The real purpose of this force was to send Cuchulainn, a powerful but gifted man who could not distinguish between friend and foe when he went mad, into the center of the enemy's position.

When he was still thirty or fifty meters away from the enemy position, Cu Chulainn activated his frenzy ability again.

As his body twisted and expanded unnaturally, Cu Chulainn entered a frenzy state. His height expanded to more than two meters, almost three meters. His eyes were red and his muscles were knotted, like a mythical beast returning to the world.

He let out a deafening roar and rushed towards the enemy position with red eyes. The Germans did not expect that the Romans would send out a gifted person at this time. They were caught off guard and had no decent defense at all. In just a few minutes, the Germans in the battle area suffered heavy losses.

The commander on this front was an Angle gifted man who tried to stop Cu Chulainn's behavior and tried to kill or severely injure Cu Chulainn under the cover of his soldiers, but it was obvious that the combat effectiveness of both sides was not on the same level.

After only a dozen or so rounds, he was suppressed and in danger under Cu Chulainn's high-pressure offensive. He was about to be seriously injured or even killed on the spot.

The German talents on the surrounding fronts wanted to concentrate their firepower to stop the opponent's actions, but before they could take action, Orville took new action.

He was very clear that he had a significant advantage - there were a large number of talented people. Even if some of them were just there to make up the numbers, that didn't matter. As long as the talented people appeared on the battlefield, they would definitely undermine the morale of the enemy's ordinary soldiers and prevent the enemy's talented people from leaving their posts.

After Cu Chulainn went to battle, Orville ordered all the talented people he could command to join the front line of the battlefield.

Boudica led the remaining Celts to attack from the other side of the battlefield, disrupting the enemy's defenses.

Belisarius and Stilicho led Orwell's most cherished elite troops into the battlefield and launched an offensive, trying to break through the Germans' increasingly weakened formation from the front.

Gilles Drais led the Gallic cavalry out of the forest to fight against the Frankish cavalry whose morale was wavering. Alfred took a part of his guards to symbolically participate in the battle. The appearance of him and the red dragon flag of Wessex greatly hit the morale of the local people. After all, Wessex was the most powerful among all the countries. Now even their king had joined the Romans and was fighting for the Romans. These soldiers could not help but be depressed.

In addition, there is Rollo who is fighting hard on the front line. Orville even made an exception and allowed Jeanne, who was not very strong in combat, to join the battlefield and lead a Gaul army to the front line.

The Germanic line, which had already seemed a little shaky, now looked particularly precarious, and it seemed that it was about to be breached at the last moment.

Harold knew that the Romans were determined to fight to the death this time and decided to end the battle during this offensive. He raised his sword high and made a final mobilization to his most trusted guards.

"Warriors! Maybe this will be our last battle, but it will definitely not be our most shameful battle. Let these butchers who claim to be civilized people see that not everyone will bow down to them like cowards!!" After saying that, he took the lead and led his bodyguards to the front line of the battlefield. All the remaining German troops that still had a certain degree of combat effectiveness also went to the battlefield.

At this point in the war, both sides were exhausted, but the Romans had greater stamina and endurance after all. Orville's ordering of all gifted people to join the war also greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers on the front line.

He paid more attention to propaganda, and had been consciously spreading the following information to the soldiers: they had an absolute advantage in both the quantity and quality of gifted people, and they might be at a disadvantage for a while during the war, but after the gifted people joined the battlefield, the situation would change.

To a certain extent, they also believed Orwell's propaganda. Now that the gifted man was really rushing to the battlefield with reinforcements, it was undoubtedly a spiritual encouragement to all Roman soldiers.

They felt greatly encouraged and burst forth with strength to launch a new offensive against the German lines.

In comparison, the reinforcements from the German side seemed a bit shabby: they were just some regrouped defeated soldiers and reserve soldiers, and the most important one was Harold Godwinson's own guards. Although these guards had good combat effectiveness, there were only two or three hundred of them after all, which would be of little use on the battlefield.

Except for Harold himself, although the commanders of the Franks and Vikings were all talented, they did not choose to fight with Harold this time.

The Franks were in relatively good condition, but they were a little bit under-performing. The commander's combat capability was evidently not weak, yet he was fighting back and forth with Gilles Dresser, who was obviously weaker than him. The same was true for the Frankish cavalry, which had been fighting with the even weaker Gallic cavalry, and the two sides were fighting at the edge of the battlefield.

As long as the Franks realized that the situation was not good and wanted to retreat, they would definitely be able to leave calmly unless these Gallic cavalry risked their lives to hold them back.

As for those Vikings who had always been at odds with Harold, they did something even more outrageous. The Viking soldiers on various fronts were gradually withdrawing from the front lines. After Ivar determined that he would lose the battle, he was very careful about his reputation and immediately ordered the Viking warriors to withdraw from the battlefield.

This move directly led to the instability of the front line and the imminent collapse. The original manpower and morale were somewhat stretched, and this made it even more so.

Ivar didn't care about the lives of the locals at all. His soldiers could escape on the boats anyway, and the Romans would be busy occupying the local area and would not make things too difficult for him, so he could just slip away.

The disadvantages of the coalition forces were undoubtedly revealed at this moment. Once the confidence in the war was shaken, a chain reaction would occur. Everyone wanted to preserve their own forces and would think about retreating before the friendly forces. As a result, this chain reaction occurred, and everyone lost the most basic confidence in the outcome of victory in the war.

In the end, it was only Harold himself who was struggling to hold on, but some things would not change according to one's will.

As Belisarius's soldiers broke through the Germanic lines head-on, the entire battle was officially declared to have entered its final stage.
(End of this chapter)